


A Better Version of Yourself

by Steve



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 10:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13499958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steve/pseuds/Steve
Summary: Maybe there was meant to be a love story here, one between a fearless lawyer and a selfless monk, two single-minded, do-gooder leader types. Instead this sad little clown house gotthem, two mistakes, two con artists from opposite ends of the country.Welcome to the bottom of the barrel.(Or: The reboot wherein Eleanor and Jason are matched as soul mates, and it isn't perfect but things go surprisingly sort of okay.)





	A Better Version of Yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telm_393](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/gifts).



> Originally written as a gift for the TGP Secret Santa exchange, but I missed the deadline by almost a month because I suck. Oops. Thanks to the [kind pinch hitter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301190) who picked up the prompt.
> 
> Anyway I thought I'd finally post this, so. Happy (super belated) holidays, [@serendipitouscontaminant](https://serendipitouscontaminant.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Warnings for alcohol & marijuana use, discussion of past child neglect, and Eleanor being kind of a jerk. Standard to canon, basically!
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://halfgap.tumblr.com/).

"Alrighty. This marks the beginning of Attempt #404... The previous three attempts lasted less than twelve weeks apiece, but Attempt #403 _did_ involve two and a half public meltdowns and an unironic Civil War re-enactment, so. Focus on the upsides! Moreover... I have a good feeling about this one. Jason always hates shutting up and being told to live a lie. Eleanor hates being reminded that she's a steaming pile of garbage. But they're well-matched enough that the torture won't be immediately apparent. This should progress very nicely. Or, you know, at the very least prove to be entertaining."

Michael shuts off the tape recorder, and opens the door.

"Jianyu? Come on in."

\--

 _If this is heaven,_ thinks Eleanor, _that creepy missionary I always saw in the elevator seriously oversold it._

So far she's been introduced to a Lego-perfect suburb with major Stepford vibes and way too many corn-on-the-cob joints, and Cheery Bowtie Tour Guide Man has given her this gaudy tiara that somehow reminds her of the one she didn't win at that child beauty pageant she was forced to enter in the third grade. Apparently the thing goes with this sash declaring her the Best Person and #1 Point Getter in a whole community of saints and go-getter point getters. Yeah, she's confused, too.

The kicker, though? She's never saved a church full of orphans from an e-mail adoption scam, or spearheaded a hunger strike to award legal rights to garden shrubs, or whatever the hell it is Bowtie Man is saying she did to land a spot here.

Still, she's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if that gift horse is forcing her to live in a tiny clown cottage straight from her nightmares. Eleanor's not completely stupid; if apparently not even Florence Nightingale or those dudes who discovered insulin made it into the Good Place, then there's no damn way _she'd_ be here without this little clerical error. She'll take dealing with obscenely cheerful do-gooders over an eternity of torture any day, thank you very much.

"Oh, goodness!" says Bowtie Man (Malcolm? Mario? Michael??), after she tries her best approximation of genuine excitement re: a whole wall of clown paintings. "Before I forget—Eleanor, I'd like you to meet your soul mate."

Behind him stands the—fine, _super hot_ —East Asian-ish dude she pretty blatantly checked out back at the Welcome Assembly. Okay, so maybe she can roll with this, after all.

"This is Jianyu Li," he continues. "He's a Buddhist monk who took a vow of silence that he still observes to this day. I think you'll have a lot to learn from each other."

"Oh. Wow," says Eleanor. "Uh, bring it in, man! I mean—wait. Can I still hug you, or is there, like, a super strict celibacy thing going on here?"

Jianyu offers a serene smile and a slight nod.

"I believe that means he's okay with it," says Mario-Michael. "Probably."

Eleanor goes for the hug, and is surprised to find Jianyu's arms immediately wrapping around her in return. He towers over her—ugh, most people do—but he bends forward slightly so she can rest her chin on his shoulder, and it's warm and weird and actually very nice, and not _just_ because his arms are surprisingly jacked underneath that monk nightgown thing. He hugs her tight and almost a little desperate, and it makes Eleanor think maybe there's somebody else here as freaked out by everything as she feels.

But then they break apart and Michael's talking, and Jianyu is all tranquil silence again.

"Ordinarily the ideal home for a soul like Jianyu's would be a traditional yurt," says Michael, "but since you are his soul mate he's graciously agreed to live in your house instead. I do think he'll appreciate the, ah, minimalism of the Icelandic primitive style in any case."

"Great." Eleanor gives two thumbs up. "As long as he loves clowns as much as I do because, oh boy. Those clown paintings really are... there. A thing which I love."

Jianyu inclines his head. Michael claps his hands together with a chirpy "Perfect! It's settled then," and leaves them alone to "get acquainted." Yeah, right. How do you get _acquainted_ with someone who literally doesn't talk? The only way Eleanor can think of probably isn't very monk-friendly.

At least he makes for good eye candy, she decides. And since he can't talk, then it wouldn't be as dangerous slipping up her Boring Good Person act in front of him, right? But he can still write, probably, and will a goody-two-shoes Zen dude like him feel some kind of spiritual imperative to blow her cover...? Or will he feel compelled to do her a solid and help nurture her soul or some crap? It's not like she can _ask_ him, or even tempt him with her raw sex appeal, which would definitely be a valid Shellstrop strategy in a different scenario.

So, she eyes him warily and says, "What the fork is a yurt?"

He shrugs, brow furrowed. He seems genuinely puzzled.

Maybe spiritual enlightenment or whatever didn't give him all the answers.

"Wait. Fork. _Fork._ Why can't I say fork?"

\--

Jason doesn't really know what's going on.

But that's almost kind of comforting because at least it's familiar. He knows how to adapt to being totally lost and confused, like the time he and Pillboi got blackout drunk and by the time he came to, he'd somehow broken into the kitchen of that gross Buffalo Wild Wings above the gas station. When the first shift manager Laney came in she thought he was some guy named Kevin, and Jason-as-Kevin learned the secret wings recipe and worked there the whole morning, and he didn’t get in trouble at all. This is because Jason is a man who can "roll with the sponges," unlike Pillboi who woke up in some old lady's backyard and panicked and got thrown in the holding cell for a night. Unfortunately the sacred knowledge Jason acquired behind the counter was lost to his hangover, but he did grab $153 from the cash register before the real Kevin finally showed up.

So when the nice man with the bowtie tells Jason he's dead and he's a silent monk guy named Jianyu, he figures the current situation is a little bit like that. He doesn't fully understand this Good Place, Bad Place stuff, but he knows if this is a prank show, he wants to win, and if this is a weird alien zoo, he _does not_ want to be the first person to get eaten. This is the time to roll with it, keep his mouth shut as this Jianyu guy, and grab the $153.

Someone needs to share that piece of advice with Eleanor.

It's only the first night and they're at a really fancy party in the huge, shiny kind of mansion Jason's only seen in music videos and James Bond movies, and Eleanor is very drunk. If she's not careful, she's going to get voted off the island, or however this thing works. He's jealous though—no one's even offered him a drink. Apparently it would be very un-monk-Jianyu-like to ask for one. He realizes this because—

"Jianyu, my _man_ ," Eleanor slurs, leaning against him. She holds out a wine glass. "I should've asked. Do you want some of _this?_ "

She makes a vague gesture and Jason isn't sure whether she's motioning toward the wine or her breasts, but either way he's just about to open his mouth and maybe say, "Yes, please," when she suddenly pulls away and downs the entire glass.

"Don't worry, buddy," she says, trying to set the glass down on the nearest available surface. She misses by an inch, and it shatters on the hardwood floor. Neither of them flinch. "I got you. I—recognize having fun wouldn't be very Yoda-monk-sage-like at all, would it?" She leans in, and her breath is sharp, grapey. "'Cause you're a _good person._ Like everyone else here."

He watches her, wide-eyed. Maybe—does she know he's not really Jianyu? The possibility scares him, and he's not even really sure why. Carefully, he leads her away from the mess of broken glass. He's not sure where to go or what to do with this sad white lady who likes clowns and is supposed to be his soul mate, but—

And then Michael is there, and he's taking her up to the stage to give her Best Person speech. Jason kind of likes it. After a lot of pauses and stammering, Eleanor gets in some rambling anecdotes about why the best Ikea furniture is not necessarily the most expensive, and at some point she launches into a rousing rendition of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" and it's pretty great. None of it really makes sense, but neither does poetry and everyone seems to like that a lot.

"So," she concludes, "I guess the best you is the you buried in your gut inside of you, and doesn't that mean in the end we're _all_ the Best Person in this neighbourhood? At least, that's the advice I shared with all those sad orphans I rescued, so. Who says I'm an expert, right?"

With that, she flings up her arms and shoves the microphone back onto its mount. She stands there and for one heavy moment the room is silent, but then Jason starts clapping and soon the whole audience is applauding. Even the tall, huffy lady with the princess hair and cargo pants, whose mouth twists like she swallowed a jar of Stupid Nick's burnt barbeque sauce, taps her palms together in a delicate approximation of a clap.

Michael returns to the stage, looking extremely pleased, and Eleanor stumbles her way back to Jianyu's side. She does three more shots before the party winds down.

As they walk home, Jason decides it's not very fun being sober around someone really, really drunk. He didn't have a lot of experience with that back in Jacksonville: bros didn't let bros get totally fucked up without joining in. He wonders if he can ask the nice magic lady from earlier—Janet—for at least a couple of whippits. Janet's there to help them, which means it can't be a mistake to break his fake vow of silence for her.

Then Eleanor's saying, "That speech was really bad, wasn't it. They're going to figure me out, and I'm gonna go, pbbhht"—she points viciously downward—"straight to the Bad Place."

Jason doesn't know what to say, but thankfully Jianyu doesn't need to say anything. He just nods, and makes extra sure Eleanor's arm is tucked securely around his neck as they approach the front door of their funny colourful house. (One time, his buddy Peanut got a concussion from passing out drunk on their boy Big Buford's doorstep. It sucked.)

Eleanor stops them both before he can open the door. She grips his arms really tight, like the time Pillboi was having a bad trip and thought Ash Ketchum had stolen their guac, or something. The ugly tiara she's been wearing all night finally falls off her head and hits the ground with a clatter that sounds louder than it is, because it's night-time.

She looks at him. "Do you get what I'm saying, soul mate?"

Jason shakes his head, glad to be honest about something.

"I'm saying, surprise, _I don't belong here!_ I'm not who they say I am. I didn't save no orphans." She snorts a giggle. "I've never saved anybody. Now try not talking about _that_ , Monk Man."

Oh. So Eleanor's _also_ pretending to be Kevin at a Buffalo Wild Wings. Maybe Michael's right, and they really are soul mates. He decides they'll talk about it tomorrow. He forgets a lot of stuff when he's drunk, and he needs Eleanor to remember his name when he finally tells it to her.

Jason helps her to bed (it's tricky with the stupid ledge that has no stairs), which also means helping her untangle herself from that "Best Person" sash. Before he leaves for the guest room, though, he smiles at her and says, "Don't worry, homie. I thought your speech was totally dope."

(The next morning, the streets are entirely covered with broken wine glasses while giant, mean giraffes stampede through the neighbourhood. It's possible the speech had a few issues after all.)

\--

After a non-hangover and hectic neighbourhood meeting, it goes down kind of like this: Eleanor panics and decides to find a teacher, someone to help her pretend to be a better person. She can't convince Jason to join her because—

"Sorry, dog, I get what you're saying, but I don't need to change myself."

"You're literally a drug dealer pretending to be a monk," she hisses. "If you don't _change_ yourself, everyone here's gonna know we're frauds and we'll both get sent to _literal hell._ "

Jason shrugs and sinks deeper into his beanbag chair. He'd been busy while Eleanor was passed out drunk. Technically sleep isn't necessary here, so it looks like Jason spent the night getting Janet to convert the guest room into a 13-year-old boy's vision of a man-cave.

"There's nothing wrong with being who I am," he says matter-of-factly, like it's that easy. Like he truly, genuinely believes it. "If this world can't accept what I have to offer, then maybe the Good Place isn't so good."

"Are you forking kidding me. You're a grown man sitting here playing Call of Duty, after you just told me about the time you willingly crippled an old lady on a dare, and you think you're too forking good for actual forking Heaven."

He shrugs, serene, eyes never leaving the screen.

Eleanor breaks. "You have got to be the _stupidest_ , most ridiculous—and I knew my boss, a truly impressive array of idiot exes, and my _parents_ —but let me tell ya, J-man, you really got them all beat—"

Jason pauses his game. "Listen," he says. "I'm not the one who needs to change, okay? You broke the fancy cups at the party, and you called Tahani a mean giraffe, and everything else. So maybe you're the only mistake, 'cause like, I did like six whippits last night with Janet _and_ I got Cheeto dust on the bed, but none of that almost broke the neighbourhood and made Michael cry. So, I don't know what your problem is."

And, shit, he has a point there. But the idea that Eleanor found the only other mistake in heaven, a fellow fraud, and he's a petty criminal-slash-DJ from Florida who is somehow, still, on some level better than her—it's too depressing to bear, so she drops it entirely and storms out, calling for Janet. She'll go it alone, this Saintly Chameleon thing.

She storms back into the house about an hour later because, okay, Chester Anananangonhala with the Harry Potter glasses just isn't going to cut it. That's just not gonna fly. Besides, maybe the morning was a fluke. Maybe she just needs to avoid alcohol, capital-S Substances of any kind, and she can actually swing this. It's not like she can do a worse job than Jianyu-Jason over there.

The next couple of days actually go more or less smoothly. No further giant giraffe-related disasters, at any rate, and it doesn't look like Michael has even considered suspecting her. She sees Chidi, the nerdy annoying dude she _almost_ asked to coach her through this, around the neighbourhood a few times, eating corn on the cob or reading books with his soul mate ( _Glenn_... yeah) or whatever the heck it is nerds do. She really thinks she's dodged a bullet there. Or maybe he's dodged her bullet. Whatever.

That condescending buttface Tahani's somehow managed to upgrade herself to one of the nearby mansions, though, and she's ditched the cargo pants (although her soul mate still wears them), and impossibly enough, all of that has only made Tahani more insufferable. She goes around door to door shortly after moving into her mansion, handing out ridiculously delicious baked goods with the kind of sickly sweet smile that Eleanor is sure must translate to, _Oh,_ that's _what you're wearing to greet me, a radiant goddess in eternal paradise?_

Eleanor shuts the front door a little harder than she has to after Tahani flounces off, leaving the great burden of fragrant blueberry muffins in her wake. She's about to turn around and fire off some choice words about Amazonian Barbie Princess, but she realizes, A) she really does not want to wake up to giant creepy dolls destroying the neighbourhood because that shiz is even scarier than clowns, and B) there isn't actually an audience for her scathing wit this time around.

She and Jason have been skirting around each other since their argument. Eleanor's relieved he hasn't gone entirely bonkers with the "I wanna be myself" thing, and he's still putting on the weird monk robes and playing along as Silent, Wise Jianyu in public. But it's not fair. When they're out on the town together, she has to paste on a smile and speak for both of them while he just stands there blank-faced and nods occasionally. If only those stuck-ups knew what was really going on in that guy's head.

At home, Jason disappears into his room for hours on end, and Eleanor can't deny she's jealous. It would be nice to have an escape, someplace to fill with useless crap—her own bedroom is out on display, right next to that gallery of clowns she can't even replace because then Michael would get suspicious. Ugh. "Fork this new agey, open concept bullshirt," she says aloud. To no one. Because Jason is holed up playing Madden NFL like a middle schooler, or whatever.

Their only communication in the past few days has taken the form of a truly disgusting game of chicken with the dirty dishes. Plates, bowls and cutlery, crusted with dried ketchup and cheddar mac and cheese powder, overflow from the sink while the adjacent counter is stacked with mounds of takeout containers and corn husks. This morning Eleanor asked Janet for a pink duvet that she's now dropped on top of the whole area, worried that Michael or nosey neighbours like Tahani will drop in and wonder why a human rights lawyer and Buddhist monk live a lot like two college burnouts.

It's ridiculous, Eleanor thinks. This is the afterlife—why do they have to do their own goddamn dishes?

"Humans become easily depressed without the routine satisfaction that comes from accomplishing superficial tasks," Janet explains brightly, once.

"Fine," grumbles Eleanor, "but if we get flies, I'll forking show you 'depressed.'"

"Fun fact," says Janet, "insects are banned from almost every single iteration of the Good Place!"

Eleanor knows if she just _starts_ on the "superficial tasks," it really won't be that hard. This is the Good Place, with magical dish detergent, and garbage disposals that never get stuck. But Eleanor also knows if she's the one to cave first, she'll have lost, shown weakness, and Jason will know he never has to clean anything ever again. She knows this tactic. She's _used_ this tactic, with almost every roommate she's ever had. It's a little something she picked up the hard way living with her lazy, garbage parents for fourteen years.

She suspects Jason is as much a veteran at being a crappy roommate as she is, though, and neither of them are even close to their breaking point.

They don't get to find out just how far away that breaking point is. After day 3 of Dishmageddon, Planet Ultra dish soap rains from the sky, and super-sized marinara-crusted plates whiz through the air like Frisbees. People are yelling as they scramble for shelter, and Michael gets clocked in the head by a plate while he tries to evacuate the streets. It's actually kind of funny but, well, that's exactly something someone who doesn't belong in the Good Place would think.

Jason draws the window curtain closed and chews at his lower lip. "This isn't because of us, is it?" he says.

"Of forking course this is us, you nimrod," snaps Eleanor, already making a beeline for the kitchen. "Hurry and help me clean this shirt up before someone comes in and sees!"

Together, the two of them clear the sink and counter in record time, loading the dishwasher to capacity, scrubbing the excess dishes with steaming tap water and way too much dish soap, shoving garbage and corn husks and as many pieces of cutlery as they can get away with into black trash bags. The storm outside ends a couple minutes after they put away the last plate, and Eleanor high fives him even though both of their hands are wet with soapsuds. The dishwasher thrums happily in the background.

She wonders if there's actually an Eleanor Shellstrop somewhere who did all the things Michael says she did. She looks at Jason, and she thinks there probably has to be a Jianyu Li out there, because that silent spiritual leader thing sounds way specific. Were the Good Eleanor and this Jianyu meant to be actual soul mates? Maybe they're on earth somewhere, both still alive. Or maybe they're in hell together, while this house meant for them in the Good Place gets Eleanor and Jason in their stead, two screw-ups who can't even do the dishes without the threat of eternal torture looming over them.

They're mistakes, they're nobodies, but they're also pulling off the ultimate con, kind of.

"So, uh," ventures Eleanor. "Clearly this system the two of us have got going is not working."

"My fingers are all wrinkly from the dishwater," Jason says forlornly.

"How about we make a deal," she says. "I take care of my own dishes and garbage, you take care of yours. I don't owe you anything, you don't owe me anything. But we both have to clear our crud by the end of each day—uh. Okay, every two days."

Jason considers this, and then holds out his fist. "Deal," he says. "C'mon, dog, don't leave me hanging."

She fist bumps him. He beams.

"Do you wanna play Call of Duty with me? I call Player 1, though." Jason looks at her, easy and guileless, and she recognizes this as a peace offering, or something.

"I—maybe next time," she says. "I found this nerdy professor dude, Chidi. I think I'm gonna tell him about me. I think he'll help—help me blend in, or, maybe, I don't know, make me a better person. Or whatever. But I won't make you come with me, and I'll keep your secret. So, man, don't worry."

Jason nods, brow furrowed, looking a little like Jianyu again despite the snapback and basketball jersey. Eleanor fires off a thumbs up, and thinks that's the end of it.

But when Chidi comes over the next day for the first lesson, Jason wanders out from his man-cave and plops into a seat next to Eleanor. She smiles, feeling oddly warm, and not just because Chidi looks hilarious with his eyes bugged out in shock at Jianyu the monk dressed like a frat boy.

Yeah, maybe they really can swing this.

\--

This is how it all goes down: most days Chidi comes to their house because it's easier than all three of them trying to hide from his soul mate at his place. The lessons aren't as terrible as school back in real life was, but sometimes Jason still falls asleep. He never really feels tired in the Good Place, but naps can still feel super good when something is boring, which Chidi's school sometimes is.

Other times Jason tries harder to listen, and it can still be confusing but Chidi actually answers his questions when he raises his hand, and he understands the examples that come into Jason's head instead of just sighing and saying, _"Stop derailing the discussion, Jason."_ He decides Chidi's a really good teacher, which is probably why he never taught at somewhere like Lynyrd Skynyrd High School.

Still, Chidi isn't always right, because some of those old philosopher dudes were definitely talking about masturbation instead of the complicated stuff Chidi makes them write essays on—and if they _weren't_ talking about masturbation, maybe they should have been instead of getting so worked up over which words meant what. Eleanor likes his idea, and gives him a grin and a high five.

Things are hard whenever lessons end for the day. The house is bigger and quieter when Chidi and his chalkboard leave, and after a whole day together Eleanor usually gets quiet and angry like she wants to be left alone. (Jason picks up on it especially when Eleanor says, "I wanna be left alone," or sometimes just, "Go away, please.") Jason likes Eleanor because she laughs at his stories and also likes fart jokes, and the things she shares from her life make more sense than the stuff people like Chidi and their other neighbours talk about (what the hell is _tenure?_ A disease?) But Eleanor can still be really mean sometimes, and a buzzkill, so Jason spends a lot of time back in his room playing games and watching movies. He calls Janet a lot, but she always disappears when he runs out of questions or focuses too long on the movie, and then he's alone again. (There's also homework, which he also usually does alone because Eleanor is bad at answering his questions and she never takes the feedback he has for her work seriously.)

He misses his dog, and Pillboi. Jason wonders who's taking care of Romeo now. He always said if he died first, Pillboi got dibs on his best stuff, like his bong lamp and his wakeboard, but Pillboi's allergic to dogs. Another one of their dance crew probably took Romeo, then. He hopes it's one of the more responsible homies, like Mary Jane or Greg. He wonders if the crew's fallen apart without him.

The thought makes him even lonelier.

"Janet?" he says. "Didn't Michael say we can call up, like, a Netflix of our life and stuff?"

"Yes, you can replay any memory from your time on Earth," she says. "Would you like me to access a particular memory?"

He brightens. "Show me the time I bought Romeo off my dealer, and he was so cute and he licked me all over my mouth. Or the time at Stupid Nick's, when—"

"Oh, I'm sorry," says Janet, and she actually does sound sorry, even though she's still doing her Janet smile. "I can only show you memories we have on file for Jianyu, since that's still who the Good Place thinks you are. Here, let me show you one!"

It's a boring video of a waterfall and lots of rocks. There are no buffalo wings, or friends, or dogs, so basically it sucks.

"This sucks," he says, flopping back down onto the couch.

Eleanor gets home, then, from wherever she's taken to disappearing to whenever they don't have lessons, and she frowns at the TV.

"What are you watching," she says, "like _Eat, Pray, Love_ or something?"

"This is a Jianyu memory. I wanted a Jason memory, but Janet said I can't get that here."

Eleanor surprises him by taking a seat next to him on the couch. "Well, yeah, dude. We don't _exist_ here."

"That really sucks." He hugs a sofa cushion to his stomach, and looks at her fiddling with the TV remote. "Why doesn't that bother you?"

She shrugs. "I mean, it does, kind of." She presses something, and the TV screen flickers to a clip of a courtroom, a verdict, a happy couple reuniting. Eleanor snorts. "My life was definitely way more fun than _this_. But, like—I don't know, man. What did we do that's really worth remembering?"

"My dance crew got third-last in a district-wide breakdancing competition," Jason says immediately. "We were really proud, but my buddies and I got high and egged the judge's house anyway. It was dope. And all the wings I ate at Stupid Nick's—I want to remember that too! And all the times I puked, after eating at Stupid Nick's. And also when my dog Romeo peed on Sheila's shoe when she was being racist. And when Romeo peed on Pillboi's shoe because it was funny. You know. The good times."

The scene on the flatscreen has switched back to waterfalls and mountains. Eleanor is quiet beside him, but the edges of her face are soft, like she's more sad than mad.

She lets out a breath. It's kind of shaky.

Finally she says, "Yeah. I figure you're right, J-ball."

"I am?" He grins. "Thanks!"

He feels a little better after getting to talk about his friends, but he still misses them. He wonders how the Jaguars are doing. He wants to know that more than anything. They don't stream Jacksonville games here, so he decides to go back to his room and maybe drown the last of the bad feelings in Madden but—

Eleanor's sitting there, looking a lot like how Jason felt when he was wondering if his dance crew fell apart without him: kind of like that feeling when you get diarrhea from bad sushi, and it's 2 a.m. and all your friends went home, so it's just you in the dark and stuck on the toilet, the only person awake in the world. Just—really lonely, mostly.

She kind of looks like how Jason still feels, right now, to be honest.

 "So, hey," he says. "Do you wanna watch a real movie? I'm sick of Jianyu's dumb waterfall. Dude doesn't even have a jet ski."

Silence, and Jason realizes he really doesn't want Eleanor to say no, because Janet never stays and he misses having Pillboi—

"Sure," she says, settling deeper into the sofa. "No _Fast & The Furious, _though."

He looks at her.

"...Okay, maybe _Tokyo Drift._ "

"Yes!" Jason glows.

They watch _Tokyo Drift_ , and then _Die Hard_ and _Miss Congeniality,_ and they basically stay on the living room couch until the sun rises. Jason falls asleep somewhere around the third episode of _The Real Housewives of Atlanta_ , and when he wakes up Eleanor is gone but there's a white box leaking grease on the coffee table, and it smells like _home._ He opens it up to find takeout jalapeno poppers from Stupid Nick's, and even though they're kind of cold now he still has them for breakfast before Chidi comes back with his chalkboard.

That afternoon, when the school day ends, Jason chucks a PlayStation controller at Eleanor before she can disappear again. She catches it, surprised, but after a moment she smirks and follows him into his sanctuary. Theirs, now, maybe.

A routine is finally established.

After that, the house gets smaller and louder, even when Chidi is gone. It's not exactly like having a best friend again—Eleanor is nothing like Pillboi, and they never really have #RealTalk like he and Pillboi did—but video games are more fun with two players, and Jason has a feeling Eleanor is just glad to be away from the gallery of scary clown paintings. Eleanor also likes a lot of the same movies as he does; they watch _Home Alone_ and even the shitty sequels like four times. The two of them were both raised by after-school cartoons and VHS cassettes stolen from Blockbuster, and they laugh at most of the same jokes.

Still, sometimes Eleanor lives up to her old-lady-like name.

"Pokémon?" she says, nose scrunched. "That's like, that thing with the yellow rat, right."

"Don't insult Pikachu!" Jason shakes his head, appalled. He even pauses their Borderlands game. "Homie, how do you _not_ know Pokémon?? I watched it every day after school for, like, three and a half years. Whenever the power at my house was out, we'd just go to my rich friend Ricky's place. He had two TVs. But then I stole his Game Boy and his Pokémon Red, so I couldn't use his TV anymore, but it was okay because, like, the game is _even better._ "

"Respect," she says, bumping his knee. "But I guess all of that was airing when I was already in high school, and—" She shrugs, blinks. "Whatever. I was more of a Ninja Turtles gal."

"Ninja Turtles are dope," he agrees sagely. Even if Pokémon is still better. "Mikey was _my boi._ "

"What the fork," says Eleanor, clearly offended. "Raphael all the way, man."

They end up marathoning the 2003 TMNT series, which neither of them had bothered to watch back on earth. It's not as funny as the one Jason grew up on, but Mikey is still there and still awesome. (He begrudgingly decides Raph is okay, too.) In between episodes, he makes Eleanor watch the original Pokémon cartoon, since she claims her fingers hurt too much from Borderlands to struggle with anything as annoying as a Game Boy right now.

They get to the episode with Ash catching Caterpie in Viridian Forest, and Eleanor snorts and says, "Not gonna lie, I bet this would be sick to watch on acid."

Jason shoots up in his armchair. "We could totally ask Janet for some! I mean, she gets me whippits all the time."

"Those are so not the same thing."

"Whatever," he says. "Janet?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Eleanor interjects before he can tell Janet what they need. "If we start tripping now, we'll still be pretty forked up by the time Chidi shows up tomorrow."

"Fine," groans Jason. He pauses to consider their options. "...Janet, can you get us a bong, please?"

" _Jason!_ "

"Here you go," Janet says brightly.

She holds out something really fancy-looking, compact and _ceramic_ like it could belong in Rich Ricky's aunt's kitchen cabinet or something. He kind of thinks Pillboi would love it, and the bowl's already packed, and that's all that matters.

Eleanor narrows her eyes at him.

Twelve minutes later, he and Eleanor are both sitting cross-legged on his mattress, and he doesn't remember ever seeing Eleanor's smiles last so long. The soothing sounds of Pokémon episodes continue to play in the background.

"It's like we're—having a sleepover or some shirt," says Eleanor. Then a laugh erupts. "Fork. Can you imagine Chidi getting high? Or _Tahani?_ "

"Or Janet," he says wistfully. "But she says pot doesn't work on her, just like food and alcohol."

"Jesus shirt, never in my life have I wanted to be a sexy, all-knowing robot chick _less._ "

He stretches out his right leg, his socked toe nudging Eleanor's shin, and it's like something bundled up tight in his bones that he didn't even know was there is finally unwinding. He thinks this is the first time since Michael brought him here that anything has felt real. Not a dream. Not a trip. Not a hazy, hungover morning at Buffalo Wild Wings under a false identity.

"I'll bet the good professor's never even seen a joint," Eleanor's saying now. She grins the grin she always does when she gets a chance to make fun of Chidi. "Much less smoked weed."

Jason scoffs. "What? _Everyone's_ smoked weed."

"You think so? Even Little Miss Posh & Perfect across the street?" Now she's got her 'making fun of Tahani' smirk on.

"Well," he says fairly, "she's always talking about how she hung out with all those celebrities."

"Oh God, I bet she did coke."

He doesn't disagree. They sit in companionable, relative quiet for a while, and Jason lifts his hand to watch the yellow ceiling light leak through the spaces between his fingers. On the TV, Ash has reached Pewter City. The air in the windowless room's remained crisp, clear, stench-free, which had earlier prompted Eleanor to exclaim, "Wow! This really _is_ the Good Place!" but to be honest, Jason's always kind of liked the smell of pot: weighty, familiar, _J-town_.

They pass the pipe between them a couple more times. Eleanor stretches out so their legs are tangled in a pile on the mattress, and her warmth against his is weighty, almost familiar. It's nice, in that easy, buzzy way.

"My dad handed me a joint when I was nine," comments Eleanor, when Brock's absent father finally reveals himself to his son. "He said it would mellow me out 'cause I was 'harshing his buzz.' Uh—" She laughs, blinks. "I guess looking back, that was a little forked up, huh?"

"Nah, dog, it’s chill!" He bumps her leg with his. "When I was nine my friend Mercury and I knew this older kid named Pete-Pete who hung out in the parking lot of our elementary school, and this one time we traded him our Twizzlers and he taught us how to roll a joint with the front pages of _The Florida Times-Union_."

"Wow. Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better."

"Yeah, it actually was not that great, but I don’t know if the weed he gave us was bad or if it was the newspaper. It had Mr. Clinton’s face on it that day."

Eleanor lets out a long breath, but at least her smile's back. Silence again.

After a while she says, "...You had a friend named Mercury?"

Jason shrugs. "His parents were really into 'Bohemian Rhapsody'."

"Overrated, but not terrible, I guess. Too forking long."

"I don’t know," he says thoughtfully. "I always liked ‘Delilah’ better."

"Wait. _What?_ "

"Like, I don't know who this Delilah chick is, but she sounds super hot."

"Dude, he's singing about his _cat._ Delilah's a cat."

Now it's his turn: " _What?_ No way."

"Yeah. I mean, one of the lyrics is literally like, 'you make me mad when you pee all over my room,' or something."

Jason considers, and shrugs. "Still pretty hot," he says.

Eleanor shoves his shoulder, but she's laughing now, what Jason assumes is her 'I'm really high and we're watching cartoons and talking Queen at 3 a.m.' laugh. So, maybe just her 'Jason Mendoza' laugh. He likes that.

They both laugh a lot more as the night drags on, episodes of Pokémon and TMNT alternating on the television screen. At one point Jason's high hits a low mood and his fingers itch for a Molotov cocktail, but Eleanor grabs his elbow and drags him to his feet and they settle for an impromptu dance party, which he loves almost as much as making things explode. They're clumsy, stoned, and at some point pretty drunk, and eventually they wear themselves out and collapse onto Jason's mattress in a breathless, ungainly heap.

When the morning light leaks in from the hallway and wakes him up, Eleanor's still snoring loudly with her cheek pressed against his shoulder. Some of her drool is on his shirt, and his head is miraculously clear and miraculously sober, and Chidi's probably due to arrive in an hour or two to teach them how to be better people. But he keeps his eyes closed for a while longer, because this is a nice moment, the kind he'd want to remember, and he's sure, somehow, that they're both good enough for this.


End file.
